Beautiful Fiction
by SilverStarsAndMoons
Summary: A oneshot sketch of Callie through her sham marriage with George. He was a beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold. Song lyrics are Blue Caravan by Vienna Teng


**Beautiful Fiction**

_Blue, blue caravan_

_Winding down to the valley of lights_

_My true love is a man_

_Who would hold me for ten thousand nights._

Secretly lonely – it's the way she's always been, and if you asked her, she'd never admit it. She's outwardly confident; amazingly strong; full of a velvet vivacity that shows in her sparkling eyes that have never gone out. She's been known to fuck guys for fun; she doesn't emotionally attach. She's got long, lithe legs; she's got heavy, shining black hair. Her skin is near perfect – but no one gets to touch it.

Calliope Iphigenia Torres – with a name like that, did you expect she wouldn't be different? Born the youngest of four children, three of them boys, Callie learned to hold her own at a young age. She doesn't take shit, and she certainly doesn't give it. Callie can't remember a time she hasn't been absolutely honest with herself, except for now. Because this slightly smaller man with a dislocated shoulder has the most melting blue eyes she's ever seen, and he's pale and he's lost. And Callie doesn't emotionally attach, but the touch of his soft fingers when he hands her his nametag ties her heart to his.

_In the wild, wild wailing of wind_

_There's a house 'neath the soft yellow moon_

_So blue, blue caravan _

_Won't you carry me down to him soon?_

No man goes for her; well, not for a long-term commitment. No one wants the time to tame her. She had a man compare her to a wild black mare; maybe it's true. Either way, Callie's never had the time or the inclination for relationships. Hell, this is the girl who drinks vodka straight and can hold her own in a burping contest. Part of her revels in being one of the guys. The rest of her wishes she could be willowy; genteel; blonde and tiny, like all of the women she sees. They get married. They have children. They captivate men, where Callie sears onto their psyche for a moment, then fades, like the spark she is.

It's been said that George adores her; she knows in her heart that it's because he doesn't know what to do with her. He loves the rough sex; he loves it when she bites his shoulder or grinds him into the mattress. They have left bruises and she has clawed marks into his back. In her heart, though . . . in her heart, Callie knows that he's confused. She's a little too rose-red for him; a little too much woman, and unlike the pale specimens that he's friends with, she's like a vibrant painting, the girl in the red dress, the Latina beauty.

So when he decides to marry her, she pushes down the confusion. They stand in a musty-smelling Vegas chapel and his lips are dry against hers as he slides the tiny diamond. It gets stuck on her big knuckle, but she pushes it over, ignoring the pain because it's drowned by the love. His hands are cold and his eyes are terrified, but he generates enough passion that night that when she gets up, she's bleeding.

_Blue, blue caravan_

_Won't you drive away all of these tears?_

_For my true love is a man_

_That I haven't seen in years._

Marriage doesn't mean bliss. This is a myth that Callie has to learn. She's been taught that no matter the problems before the marriage, the holy union of God heals all. That's not so. Damn you, Papa.

The sex is routine. She rolls over, he dutifully gets on top, she tries to rub some life back into his tired body, but he can't bring himself to light a fire under his own ass. He won't try new things with her. His eyes brim with tears for his father and she can't console him. She screws her nails into her hands just to feel the pain, and he pretends not to notice the blood running down her wrists. Breaking bones at work doesn't hide the apathy – she can't seem to find her vitality when her husband is a shell of the man she loves.

He starts to hang out more at Meredith Grey's house. She spends time at Joe's, swirling vodka and tonic in a glass. Mark Sloan challenges her to a shot contest and she gives him a dead-eyed look and remembers when staying out all night was the norm. When she crawls back to the hotel room, George isn't there, and she spends another night curled on her side, trying to warm the bed enough for the marriage that's dying in her hands.

_He said, "Go where you have to, for I belong to you_

_Until my dying day"_

_So like a fool, blue caravan_

_I believed him, and I walked away._

He's checked out, and she can't call him back from whatever hell he's living in. He still goes through the motions, but even sucking him off gets no response. When he gets up and goes towards the door, she has a premonition.

"You're coming back, right?"

"Of course. Why are you always so suspicious?"

"I just want to feel alive for once."

He has no response. Then –

"Am I holding you back?"

Is he?

_Oh, my blue, blue caravan_

_The highway is my great wall_

_My true love is a man_

_Who never existed at all._

It's no surprise that he's been with Izzie Stevens; no surprise at all. And maybe she should have known it – maybe she should have been more aware, but she knows that there's nothing she could have done at all. She feels like she's imagined a husband – has she invented a man to love out of need? This man before her is small, and pale, and lying through his teeth, and if she was an abusive wife, she would have hit him, just to see him flinch. Callie's never believed in masks. Fuck if her husband's going to wear one just to save their marriage.

When she finds out, she does nothing at all, and from his terrified expression, he's expecting a bust-up. How strange to see herself standing before him, all woman and real as they come, while he runs for a cookie-cutter version of what a woman is supposed to look like. She doesn't hate Izzie for Izzie; she hates Izzie for being what she never could be. First choice when she's fucking second best.

She orders him out in a calm tone and he complies, quaking, probably wetting himself with fear. When he leaves, she lies on the cold bathroom floor and fucks herself hard, making sure that her nails catch inside and tear it open. It's rougher than she's ever had it but it's a punishment for not being who he needed her to be. The passion builds inside her, but there's no outlet. She can fuck herself sore but never come.

_Oh, he was a beautiful fiction_

_I invented to keep out the cold_

_Now, my blue, blue caravan_

_I can feel my heart growing old._

Remember the girl who's afraid to walk past a crowd? No matter what her reason, doing it is like crossing a bed of fire. Crowds, in general, are horrible, mindless things. They're the result of a group who has one goal. When Callie was thirteen, she was circled by such a crowd and closed in on. She may have been a dark, beautiful girl with snapping eyes, but it was no match for twenty empty souls looking for destruction. It's easy to break someone when it's one against one hundred.

She's not here. She's traveling somewhere beyond the hospital, and her surgeries are not quite as well done, and she can't handle her job. When George comes back to pick up his stuff, she's standing against the window and the spark in her eyes is out.

He feels badly for breaking her, but you can't feel too badly when you're getting what you want. In time, it will torment him; especially when he hears his father's voice lecturing him about breaking the Golden Rule. For now, though –

"Callie. I'm . . . I'm sorry."

"It's fine. We never existed, anyway."

_Oh, my blue, blue caravan_

_I can feel my heart growing old._


End file.
